


The Rule of Three

by dracoqueen22



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Romance, The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye (IDW), accidental romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-13 22:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17496167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: Whirl had a plan. It was a good plan. By the end of it, he’d be rich, Cyclonus and Tailgate would be together, and all would be well. And then the plan went awry. Because Whirl? He fell in love, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was sponsored by a lovely anonymous individual.

**Prologue**

  
  
This wasn’t part of the plan.   
  
Falling in love. It was never part of the plan.   
  
No. Scratch that. Falling in love, that was inevitable. Except those feelings? Were supposed to be between Cyclonus and Tailgate. And they are!  
  
Whirl knew to the depths of his angry spark, Cyclonus and Tailgate loved each other. They were just… awful at saying so. And showing so. And pretty much everything around the way normal mechs were supposed to behave when feelings were mutual.   
  
Helping them get together was practically a public service.   
  
Except, the kicker, was the awkward part of the plan.   
  
The part where Whirl fell in love with them, too.   
  


**Part One**

  
  
It started with Swerve.   
  
He’d made some offhand comment about how aggravating it was to watch Cyclonus and Tailgate dance around their feelings, because Tailgate was kind of a coward and Cyclonus didn’t know how to use his words. It was exhausting and nauseating and aggravating and the betting pool around the Lost Light was starting to reach historical proportions.   
  
Something had to be done, Swerve reasoned.   
  
So Whirl got to thinking. He clacked his claws together, eyed the significant amount of creds he’d already laid on Tailgate being the first to polish his bearings and stand his ground, and decided that if something had to be done, Whirl was going to be the one to do it.   
  
That wasn’t  _technically_  interfering with the situation. He’d argue semantics later.   
  
Whirl chugged the rest of his drink, shoved the empty cube across the counter toward Swerve, and leveraged himself out of the stool. He pondered where to start first, and then almost smacked himself because duh.   
  
Easier targets first.   
  
It took some searching. He had to ask more than a few crewmates, some of whom didn’t want to be helpful, but eventually they pointed him in Tailgate’s direction.   
  
Tailgate was in the washracks, in the stall furthest from the entrance, the one mechs tended to use for a little fun with semi-privacy. But Cyclonus was on duty, so Whirl knew Tailgate was in there alone.   
  
“Tailgate!” he sang as he strode down the otherwise empty rows. His voice rang through the tiled walls, echoing back to him.   
  
“I’m busy,” came the reply, a bit softer in volume than what Whirl had used, and tremulous at that. Sharp, also, sharp enough to echo as Whirl’s had.   
  
Was he not alone after all? Had Tailgate found a bit of fun on the side? Good for him!  
  
“Too busy for your best friend Whirl?” He jogged up to the divide and peered around the corner, only to find Tailgate was alone, though he was hunched forward, one hand braced on the wall.   
  
“Too busy period!” Tailgate said, sounding more panicked now. He glanced over his shoulder, his visor streaked white. “Whirl! Go away!”   
  
Oh, he was busy all right. Handling some important tasks, yeah? Something Cyclonus should have been helping him with because he was dumb and stubborn.   
  
If Whirl could grin, he would have. “Yeah, you look like you got your hands full.” He shifted back around the wall, but peeked around the corner anyway. “Need some help?”   
  
“Go!” Tailgate’s vocals crackled.   
  
Whirl chuckled and ducked out of sight. He leaned against the wall, arms folded under his cockpit, and waited.   
  
He didn’t pretend he wasn’t listening. He tilted his head and dialed up his audials and drank in the quiet gasps, the engine revs, the barely audible slide of fingers around a spike. Tailgate’s stuttered moan echoed under the fall of the solvent, and a shiver wracked Whirl’s spinal strut.   
  
He wished he could have been able to watch, at least. He’d bet a hundred creds Tailgate looked very cute when overloading.   
  
A few moments later, the solvent cut off, the head drip-dripping to the floor. Tailgate peered around the corner, dripping also, and Whirl handed him a meshcloth without a word.   
  
Tailgate didn’t have a mouth. Even so, Whirl knew he was scowling.   
  
“You’re so rude,” he complained.   
  
“It’s a public space, Legs,” Whirl said with a chuckle. He gleefully watched as Tailgate toweled himself off with quick wipes of the mesh. “If you didn’t want an audience, you should have gone somewhere private. Like your berthroom.”   
  
“That would’ve been worse!” Tailgate spluttered as he tossed the wet towel at Whirl, who snapped up and caught it before it could strike him in the face.   
  
Tailgate was adorable when he was flustered.   
  
“Why’s that?” Whirl asked as he fell in step beside the minibot, who left little wet tracks behind him. Tiny ones for tiny feet.   
  
Ultra Magnus would have a fit if he saw those.   
  
“What if Cyclonus had walked in on me?” Tailgate asked, aghast.   
  
Whirl lobbed the damp towel toward the laundry bin. “Then maybe he would’ve joined in.” He followed Tailgate out of the communal washracks and into the hall.  
  
“No, he wouldn’t have,” Tailgate replied with such finality in his tone, Whirl was taken aback. His field flattened with misery, and Whirl got the sense it had happened before.   
  
 _Oh._    
  
“Well, Cyclonus fancies himself a gentleman. He probably thought he was being respectful by not even offering,” Whirl said, trying to keep his tone light and dismissive. It’s not a big deal, not at all.   
  
Tailgate’s visor streaked a rainbow of color, as if he couldn’t settle on a reaction. “I don’t want him to be a gentleman,” he wailed. “I want him to frag me.”   
  
Whirl would have gaped, if he had a mouth. “Uh.” He scratched at the underside of his optic. “Have you tried, I dunno, telling him that?”   
  
Tailgate’s field flared. He looked scandalized. “Are you kidding? He’d reject me!”   
  
Whirl was just about one-hundred percent sure rejection was nowhere in Cyclonus’ catalog of responses to anything Tailgate would ask of him. Though he understood why Tailgate might think so. Their relationship had a history of being, er, tumultuous.   
  
Still.   
  
“I’m starting to think you don’t understand him at all,” Whirl said, and patted Tailgate on the head with a little sigh. “But hey, that reminds me. I went looking for you for a reason.”   
  
Tailgate peered up at him, the light behind his visor narrowed and suspicious. “I’m not playing another prank on Skids. The last time didn’t go so well for me.”   
  
“Yeah, but it was pretty hilarious.” Whirl would grin, if he could. “No, it’s not a prank. Just thought you and me could have a little conversation about you and Cyclonus.”   
  
Tailgate’s field flickered around the edges, betraying the mix of longing and affection that tended to swirl around him whenever Cyclonus was mentioned favorably. “What kind of conversation?”   
  
“The helpful kind.” Whirl steered Tailgate toward Swerve’s, because the best conversational lubricant came in the form of engex. Plus, this was half Swerve’s idea and no doubt he wanted some input. “I’m going to do you a solid, Legs. I’m going to help you snag the big horned idiot.”   
  
Tailgate’s fingers twisted and tangled together. “Why would you do that?”   
  
“Because I am kind and generous at spark.” Whirl pressed one of his claws to his cockpit, over his spark. “And I could really use the good karma.”   
  
“Your motivation sounds suspicious,” Tailgate replied with a squint.   
  
Whirl chuckled. “Okay. You caught me.” He tapped on the underside of Tailgate’s chin. “Honestly, we’re all tired of watching the endless circle. It’s time for a change.”   
  
Tailgate’s engine stuttered. “What do you mean ‘all’?”   
  
“Don’t worry about it.”   
  
He guided Tailgate into Swerve’s, already buzzing with business despite the mid-shift hour. There’s just enough room at the bar for he and Tailgate both to snag a seat, so they did, Whirl bodily lifting Tailgate up into the stool before the minibot could scurry away or out of reach. They had plans to make. No escaping Legs.   
  
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t two of some of my favorite people on the Lost Light,” Swerve said as he noticed them and came over as quick as he could. “What can I offer you on this fine mid-afternoon?”   
  
“Whatever’s cheap but still tastes good,” Whirl said and climbed into his own stool. “First round’s on me.”   
  
Swerve whistled. “Look who’s being generous. What’s the special occasion?”   
  
“Whirl thinks he has some elaborate plan to make Cyclonus fall in love with me,” Tailgate declared, a bit too happily for Whirl’s liking, and a bit too loud for it to count as the least bit secretive.   
  
Swerve’s visor blinked. He chuckled, “Okay, but isn’t Cyclonus already--”  
  
“Just bring the drinks, Mouth,” Whirl interrupted. He gave Swerve a hard look.   
  
Both Tailgate and Cyclonus were oblivious and blind. The entire crew could shout the obvious at them until their vents wheezed and their sparks burnt out, but it wouldn’t work. No, this was going to take a more delicate touch. The fine details of a former watch-maker, if you will.   
  
“Sure, sure,” Swerve said, dismissive. “I’ll just get right on that.” He gave Whirl an equally hard look and scurried off.   
  
“You can be really rude sometimes, you know that?” Tailgate said. He sat demure on the stool, hands folded on the counter in front of him, fingers threaded together. His feet kicked out, adorable and innocent.   
  
Small wonder Cyclonus couldn’t bear to bring himself to admit his feelings.   
  
“It’s a rude world.” Whirl leaned an elbow on the counter and faced Tailgate. “Listen, Legs. Truth is, this little game of pining and chasing isn’t working. You wanna score Cyclonus? You gotta start being more proactive.”   
  
Tailgate peered up at him, visor bright and focused, looking so damned cute Whirl didn’t know how Cyclonus hadn’t scooped him up and berthed him already. What kind of saint did he think he was?  
  
“Okay,” Tailgate said, and his field perked with interest. “How?”   
  
“Ask him out,” Whirl said, blunt.   
  
Tailgate’s visor flared. His stool rocked beneath him. “I can’t do that,” he said, vents wheezing, as if Whirl had just suggested he should open his panels, spread his legs, and give his aft a wiggle. “He’d say no. He’d turn me down. He’d--”  
  
“Calm down,” Whirl said with a patting motion at the near-frantic minibot. “I didn’t mean on a date, I just meant, you know. Ask him out. For fun. Spend time with him. Be  _friendly_.”   
  
“We’re friends,” Tailgate insisted. His fingers tangled together again, and Whirl worried they’d work themselves into knots.   
  
“Didn’t say ya weren’t,” Whirl replied as Swerve appeared, pushing two bubbling cups of engex their way, swirly straws cheerfully bobbing around the rims.   
  
“Sweet and Sultry, just for you,” Swerve said in a tone far too cheerful to be genuine. More bubbles rose to the surface of the engex. “I expect a big tip this time.”   
  
“I never tip you.” Whirl snorted and tugged his engex closer, claws inexpertly slipping around the slick glass.   
  
Aft. Swerve knew better than to give him a cup without a handle.   
  
“Well, maybe you should start,” Swerve drawled. He leaned on the edge of the counter, hands clasped in front of him, eying Tailgate speculatively. “You sure you want his help? Because I think maybe I’ve got a few ideas that’ll be better.”   
  
Tailgate tugged his engex closer and popped open his mouthguard, guiding the straw to his intake. “I remember the last idea. No thanks.”   
  
Whirl remembered it, too. He had to swallow his guffaw.   
  
Swerve chuffed a vent. “Talk about ungrateful,” he muttered, and pushed off from the counter. “Fine. Good luck with nutjob then.”   
  
“I’m all the luck he needs,” Whirl called out after him, but Swerve was already hurrying to the other end of the counter, where Skids had appeared out of nowhere.   
  
Skids was unfairly attractive to everyone aboard the ship. Whirl wanted to lodge a complaint with management. And then, possibly, see if he could get into Skids’ berth as well. It was only fair.   
  
“Anyway,” Whirl continued as he pulled out his injector cable and slipped the other end into the engex, “Talking. Conversation. You and Cyclonus need to learn what those two words mean.”   
  
Tailgate stared at him. “We talk.”   
  
Whirl leaned closer and popped a claw right in the middle of Tailgate’s forehead. “No, you babble, he broods. You stammer, he stares at you in useless adoration. You ogle, he goes on and on about boring history stuff no one cares about.”   
  
It was so painful to watch honestly.   
  
“Conversation,” Whirl continued with a wave of his claw. “Is give and take. Reciprocation. Get me?”   
  
“I know how conversation works,” Tailgate replied, his field flaring with exasperation. He sucked at his engex, draining it in one long pull.   
  
Whirl squinted at him. “Do you though? Because honestly, you and Cyclonus suck at it.”   
  
 _Sluuuuurp._    
  
Tailgate finished off the engex. His legs kicked. He looked a bit crestfallen, and it simply wasn’t fair. How could Cyclonus look into that limpid, blue visor and not want to cuddle Tailgate into happiness? Mech had bearings of duryllium.   
  
“But that’s okay,” Whirl said with forced brightness. “Because I am here to help. Today. At this very moment.” He made a broad gesture, nearly yanking his injector cable free of the engex. “You and me, Legs, are going to  _practice_.”   
  
“What does that even mean?” Tailgate wailed, sounding exasperated and annoyed and hopeless somehow all at once.   
  
Whirl’s spark clenched in sympathy. “Roleplay,” he declared. “And not the fun kind. We’ll save that for later.”   
  
“I don’t need any practice in the berth, Whirl,” Tailgate said, indignant. His engine revved pointedly.   
  
“Good to know.” Whirl laughed and leaned in closer. “But for future reference, if you ever need a hand or claw--” He paused to click said claw pointedly, and flicked his optic in the closest thing he’d managed to devise for a wink, “You know where to find me.”   
  
Tailgate’s field flushed a fluorescent pink. “Whirl!”   
  


~

  
  
Convincing Cyclonus to go anywhere with Whirl took significantly more effort.   
  
First, he had to make sure Tailgate was otherwise occupied, so as not to spoil the plan. Whilst Cyclonus might brood out the window while Tailgate went somewhere without him, Tailgate had no compunctions about following Cyclonus around like a lost turbofox. So. Distractions had to be arranged.   
  
Whirl went through a gamut of options, considering and dismissing each of them, before he finally settled on Rung. Then, of course, he had to sit through a lecture.   
  
“I don’t particularly approve of such underhanded methods of creating a relationship,” Rung said while he adjusted his spectacles and gave Whirl several flavors of disapproving looks. “They need time to figure it out on their own.”   
  
“They’ve had time,” Whirl said, exasperated, throwing up his claws in despair. He’d pace around the office, if Rung’s office wasn’t so annoyingly small. “They’re getting nowhere.”   
  
“To be fair, the Lost Light has encountered more than its fair share of distractions,” Rung said with a pointed look out his window, his attention drifting. He got like this now and again, as if his processor was floating along on some distant shore.   
  
Whirl patiently waited for Rung to drift back.   
  
“Anyway, they’ll figure it out on their own,” Rung said, after a few minutes had passed.   
  
“No, they won’t, Eyebrows,” Whirl insisted and planted himself in front of Rung’s desk, looming a bit over it. “You gonna help me or not?”   
  
Rung gave him a long, incisive look. Whirl didn’t particularly like those looks. It was like Rung could peel open his armor, crack apart the layers of his spark, and examine every little flare and flicker to see what he was really about.   
  
“I’ll help,” he said, at length. “What do you want me to do?”   
  
Whirl would’ve grinned, if he could.   
  
Once Rung was recruited, he got the therapist to go distract Tailgate. He didn’t care how Rung did it, he just wanted Tailgate in the opposite direction of wherever Whirl decided to convince Cyclonus to join him. Which, in this case, would be Swerve’s because free drinks.   
  
Free engex was Swerve’s contribution to Whirl’s venture, and if he slyly put his name in the betting pot because of this new knowledge, well, Whirl kept that information to himself.   
  
The hardest part was luring Cyclonus out of his den of brooding and self-flagellation. Whirl pressed the door panel until Cyclonus couldn’t ignore it any longer and flung the door open, pinning Whirl with a glare that was somehow both ice-cold and lava-hot at the same time.  
  
“What do you want?” Cyclonus asked.   
  
“A drink,” Whirl said as he bobbed on his heels. “And I don’t want to go alone. So you’re coming with me.”   
  
“That sounds less like an invitation and more like a demand,” Cyclonus replied, his dour face shifting downward into an even more dour frown.   
  
Honestly, if the mech wasn’t so damned handsome, his perpetual moodiness would be an immediate turn-off. But then, Whirl supposed that’s why Cyclonus and Tailgate complemented each other so well. Cyclonus kept Tailgate grounded, and Tailgate encouraged Cyclonus to let go a lot.   
  
“Then it’s a demand.” Whirl shrugged and snatched at Cyclonus’ arm, his claw wrapping around the other mech’s wrist. “Come on. No more brooding. There’s nothing you can’t learn from the window that you can’t also learn from a drink or two or three.”   
  
Cyclonus’ vents audibly huffed with irritation. “I can acquire meditation and quiet, to name two, by avoiding drinking ventures.”   
  
He stumbled out after Whirl anyway, with the barest of protests. Aw. Someone was lonely and didn’t want to admit it. Kind of cute, if Whirl thought about it. He knew that tough mech act was more theater than reality. Cyclonus was just as desperate for real connections with other mechs as… well… as Whirl himself.   
  
“Where’s the fun in that?” Whirl towed Cyclonus up the hall, until Cyclonus finally caught up with him and Whirl felt it was safe to let him go. “You need to learn what it means to kick back and relax, Hornhead. No wonder you’ve got Tailgate stressed all the time.”   
  
Cyclonus’ lips twitched toward a frown. “Tailgate is not stressed.”   
  
Whirl paused in the middle of the hall, moving in close enough that his face was inches apart from Cyclonus’. He peered at him. He flexed his field, pushed it against Cyclonus’, seeing if he could get the warrior to relent.   
  
“What are you doing?” Cyclonus demanded, the edge of a growl hitting his voice, his field flexing back with agitation and challenge.   
  
“Huh,” Whirl said. “You don’t look blind to me.” He leaned back and tapped a claw against the bottom edge of his eyestalk. “Must just be that you don’t pay attention enough. Poor, poor Tailgate.”   
  
He sighed with exaggerated puffs of his vents and turned, striding down the hall. He wondered if he’d managed to scare Cyclonus away, but sure enough, the nearly-silent footsteps hurried to catch up to him.   
  
“What do you mean by such a statement?” Cyclonus asked, frowning now. His armor had puffed from his frame as if he were dancing around aggression.   
  
“Come on, Con,” Whirl said, throwing his arms into the air. “You and me and the entire universe know how you feel about the cute little Panic Legs. What we don’t know is why you keep pushing him away.”   
  
Cyclonus folded his arms. “I fail to see how that is any business of yours.”   
  
“I’m a very generous mech who believes in the beauty of true love,” Whirl replied with a grandiose air. He nudged Cyclonus in the direction of Swerve’s, and braced himself for the expected blow.   
  
It never came.   
  
Instead, Cyclonus gave him a long, speculative look. It wasn’t as incisive as Rung’s, but it still made Whirl feel like Cyclonus was trying to peel back layers to divine Whirl’s true intentions. Had to be the ancientness in him. Something about old, near-rusted mechs made them weird.   
  
“Plus,” Whirl continued, “you and me could stand to be a bit more friendlier, right? Since we’re on the same side now and all.”   
  
Cyclonus’ optics narrowed further. He stared for another longer moment, and just when Whirl felt antsy enough to reach for a weapon, Cyclonus snorted and dropped his arms.   
  
“Friends,” he echoed as he moved past Whirl, striding up the hallway with purpose. “We shall see.”   
  
Whirl squinted at him. He wasn’t sure if that was a threat or a concession, but either way, Cyclonus went in the direction Whirl wanted him to go, so it was a victory.   
  
“Does that mean you don’t want to kill me anymore?” Whirl asked as he jogged to catch up and followed Cyclonus right into Swerve’s, where the other mech made a beeline for one of the more secluded booths.   
  
So anti-social Cyclonus was. He really needed to get out more.   
  
“The night is yet young,” Cyclonus replied, droll.   
  
Whirl skidded to a halt in front of the booth, blinking rapidly as Cyclonus slid into the seat and waited, fingers tapping the top impatiently.   
  
“Did you just make a joke?” Whirl asked.   
  
“Did who make a joke?” Swerve asked, appearing out of fragging-nowhere because that was apparently a skill all bartenders magically learned two seconds after they stepped behind a bar. “Cyclonus? Because that’s impossible.”   
  
Cyclonus sighed.   
  
Whirl dropped down into the opposite side of the booth, making the whole thing rattle. “I think I need my audials checked. Because I could have sworn I heard a joke.”   
  
Cyclonus buried his face behind his palm.   
  
Swerve grinned, gaze darting between the two of them. “Should’ve recorded it. For posterity’s sake.” He tucked a serving tray under his arm. “Hey, where’s Tailgate? Shouldn’t he be here for--”   
  
He cut off as Whirl sliced through the air with a claw and hissed in Swerve’s direction. Ix-nay on the Tailgate-ey? Part of the plan, dumbaft.   
  
Luckily, Swerve was much quicker on the uptake. “I meant,” Swerve said loudly, cycling his vocalizer. “What can I get you to drink?”   
  
“It’s on me,” Whirl said, by which he meant, it’s on Swerve, but Cyclonus didn’t need to know that. “In celebration of us now being friends.”   
  
Cyclonus lowered his hand, and his face had gone back to stern brooding. It was unfair, how attractive such a sulky look could be. Sometimes, Whirl wondered what Tailgate saw in such a dour mech. And then the light hit him a certain way, or that dry wit peeked out, and Whirl realized, ahhh. This was it right here.   
  
Lucky, lucky Tailgate.   
  
“Tell you what,” Swerve said, either oblivious to or in spite of the brooding aura now forming a cloud over their table, “I picked up a bottle of that wine you like when we stopped at that outpost. How ‘bout I bring you a glass or two of that?”   
  
Cyclonus leveled a look at Swerve and visibly swallowed a sigh. “It’s worth sampling,” he allowed, though grudgingly. It was almost nice of him, not to be one-hundred percent an aft about it.   
  
“You already know what I want,” Whirl said.   
  
“Coming right up!” Swerve scurried away, leaving Cyclonus and Whirl to stare at each other.   
  
Well.   
  
Whirl stared. Cyclonus’ gaze wandered past Whirl’s shoulder and off to the left, where a portside window offered a boring view of space rushing past. Seriously. What was so entertaining about getting lost in the maze of one’s thoughts? What if he never found his way out again?  
  
“So,” Whirl said, leaning on the table, his limbs akimbo. “What’s your favorite color?”   
  
Blue, the same shade as Tailgate’s paint, or Tailgate’s visor, Whirl guessed.   
  
Cyclonus blinked. His gaze dragged back to Whirl. “What?” He sounded honestly confused, lost, and Whirl had to swallow a laugh because he tasted the confusion in Cyclonus’ field, and it was so genuine. Charming even.   
  
“Color. Your favorite.” Whirl clicked his right claw together, making an awful noise of it. “That’s the kind of thing friends should know. I don’t have one, personally. It seems final to outright choose.”   
  
Cyclonus’ orbital ridge drew down. He cycled his optics again. “You’re serious,” he observed.   
  
“Cyc, I’m always serious,” Whirl said with an elaborate crossing of one claw in front of his spark. “We got a lot in common, you know.”   
  
“Like?” Cyclonus lifted one orbital ridge.   
  
Whirl’s rotors went through a minor rotation. “Uh.” He couldn’t, suddenly, think of a single blessed thing.   
  
“Drinks!”   
  
Thank Primus for Swerve, who swooped in and set their drinks in front of them like they were gifts from the Allspark. A tall, sparkling glass filled with a jewel-like liquid was sat in front of Cyclonus. A heavy tumbler frothing at the brim with engex was plunked in front of Whirl, straw dancing around the bubbles.   
  
Swerve tucked the serving tray under his arm, gaze darting between Cyclonus and Whirl alike. “So what’re you two talking about today, hm? A certain adorable minibot, I’ll bet. And no, I’m not talking about me.” He chuckled.   
  
Cyclonus sighed.   
  
Whirl carefully pinched the straw with his claw and swirled it around the engex. “Swerve, buddy, pal. You simultaneously have the worst and the best timing.”   
  
Swerve tipped his head. “… Thanks?”   
  
Cyclonus cupped his glass and rose to his feet. He braced one hand on the table and leaned forward. “I suggest, in the future, conversation is not our forte. Perhaps sparring would be better received,” he said.   
  
Whirl’s field fluttered through a melange of emotions, because he couldn’t settle on one. “Hey, if anyone’s no good at talking, it’s you, Mr. Stares Out The Window.”   
  
Cyclonus’ lips twitched. It might have been out of amusement. Or fury. Whirl never could tell. “Thank you for the drink,” he said with a grateful dip of his head.   
  
He left.   
  
Both Swerve and Whirl watched him go, to a lone table in the opposite corner, where he tucked himself in and had a great view of the absolutely nothing that was outside the window.   
  
“So,” Swerve said as he slid into Cyclonus’ abandoned seat, “Want to tell me how that helps Tailgate?”   
  
Whirl plunked his auto-injector into the engex. “He left the room without being dragged. And without Tailgate wagging his cute aft suggestively. I call that a win.”   
  
Swerve snorted.   
  


***


	2. Chapter 2

Stage one progressed swimmingly.   
  
Getting Tailgate alone for a conversation was easy. Whirl had to put up with intense looks of longing toward doors where Cyclonus wasn’t, but still. Tailgate was easy to talk to, easy to convince, and he was on board with anything Whirl had planned, so long as it meant he would someday have his spark’s desire.   
  
Well, provided Whirl’s plans were legal and non-manipulative.   
  
What the cute little marshmallow didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Whirl would wink, if he had the capability.   
  
And sure, that meant he had to endure countless hours where Tailgate waxed poetically about Cyclonus’ many, many fine qualities, it was kind of cute to listen to Tailgate gush. At least Tailgate wasn’t completely blind. A bit naive, painfully obsessed with the idea of love, but he wasn’t a fool.   
  
He knew Cyclonus wasn’t perfect.   
  
He ranted about Cyclonus as much as he praised the not-quite-Decepticon. So Whirl gave him that much credit.   
  
Cyclonus though.   
  
He was a different story.   
  
Cyclonus didn’t talk. He seemed allergic to words and speaking them aloud, and preferred to communicate with intense stares, especially ones which tended to get Whirl’s hackles raised. Whirl quickly realized that conversations over drinks at Swerve’s were not the way to get through to Cyclonus.   
  
Sparring, however. That was another kettle altogether.   
  
All it took was a little goading, a little prying, a little teasing, and he got his alone-time with Cyclonus. Granted, he spent most of it either getting thrown around the practice room, or being the one doing the tossing, but what were a few dents and paint scrapes between friends, eh?   
  
Frag, Whirl might even admit he was having  _fun_.   
  
After a good aft-kicking, Cyclonus unbent long enough to stop glaring at Whirl and participate in conversation. He appreciated a good sparring session.   
  
With Cyclonus, Whirl learned the value of silence. Cyclonus was chattier if you gave him time to speak. So Whirl practiced the art of patience and patted himself on the back when he was rewarded with little drops of insight into the complicated and tangled mind that was Cyclonus of Tetrahex.   
  
Friendship accomplished, the second stage of his plot could begin.   
  
He invited them separately, and inwardly crowed when they arrived at nearly the same time, staring at each other in surprise, then in synchronous suspicion as they turned to look at Whirl.   
  
“What a coincidence,” Whirl said, with his arms thrown into the air. “Who knew I was so bad at remembering my own schedule?” He was so glad his face couldn’t betray his glee. “Oh, well. I guess we’ll have to spend this time together, all three of us.”   
  
“You are painfully transparent,” Cyclonus said.   
  
Tailgate giggled. “Even as old as I am, I know that trick, Whirl. You could have just said you wanted to spend time with both of us at once.”   
  
Okay, but that wasn’t even the goal? He wanted them to spend time together. He was just the Whirl-shaped social lubricant to ensure it happened.  
  
“But that would be a lie, Tailgate,” Whirl insisted as he rested a hand on the minibot’s shoulder and tucked Tailgate against his side. “And I am not a liar. I am a wholesome, honest, and forthright rotary.”   
  
Cyclonus snorted.   
  
“I feel like I should step away from you, lest Primus strike us all dead for that utter lie you just said,” Tailgate said with a laugh. But he didn’t move from under Whirl’s arm. Instead, he peered up at Whirl. “What’s the plan?”   
  
“Plan?  _Plan_? There’s no plan. I scoff at the idea of a plan.” Whirl reached out and snagged Cyclonus by the arm, tugging him close enough for Whirl to drape an arm over Cyclonus’ shoulders. “Do I look like a mech who has a plan?”   
  
“No,” Cyclonus and Tailgate answered in an eerie tandem that sent a shiver down Whirl’s spinal strut.   
  
His head swung from one mech to the other. “Please don’t do that again,” Whirl said. “Even if you are both right. I do not have a plan. I have a coincidence.” He started down the hall, leading them with him. “You don’t mind, do you?”   
  
“Of course not,” Tailgate said. He patted Whirl’s claw resting on his shoulder and beamed brightly.   
  
Cyclonus moving with him and not ducking out from under Whirl’s arm was concession enough, but he granted them a verbal answer as well. “What did you have in mind?”   
  
Whirl would have grinned, if he could.   
  
“Shooting range,” Whirl declared. “Tailgate could use the practice. I don’t think I’ve ever  _seen_  you fire a blaster, and it’s about time I got to strut my stuff.” He blasted his field with amusement and pride, and was delighted when Tailgate responded with a blush of affection, and even Cyclonus managed a smidgen of grudging acceptance.   
  
“Sounds good to me!” Tailgate said.   
  
Cyclonus grunted.   
  
As it turned out, Cyclonus was perhaps one of the worst marksmechs Whirl had ever seen. He held a blaster as though he’d only ever learned how to do so from watching terribly rated action films, and his shots only landed in the vicinity of the target. Tailgate was better at it than him, but then, he must have had more practice.   
  
It was kind of reassuring, though, to know there was at least one thing in the universe Cyclonus didn’t excel at. Everything else seemed to come so effortless to him, including hand-to-hand combat. Whirl felt a stirring of glee that there was one thing he easily outpaced Cyclonus with.   
  
“Wow,” Whirl said as Cyclonus fired and managed to clip the shoulder of the target on the nearest row. “I see why you rely on a sword.” He peered at the purple mech. “Do we need to get you a pair of spectacles, too?”   
  
Tailgate giggled.   
  
Cyclonus gave him a baleful look. “There is nothing wrong with my vision.” He glared down at the blaster as though it was to blame for his poor aim. “My targeting software must be out of date.”   
  
“Like really out of date. Have you ever used it? Sheesh.” Whirl moved closer and tapped Cyclonus’ left foot. “Your stances are slag, too. What kind of military training they give you back in the old days?”   
  
“Apparently, not the correct kind.” Cyclonus’ mouth twisted in a grimace. His field flushed embarrassment beneath the stoic acceptance.   
  
Too cute.   
  
Whirl graciously decided not to comment on it, though he filed that away for later. Cyclonus, not perfect, so adorable! He wanted to pinch Cyclonus’ non-cheeks and tease him about it forever. Except that would probably make Cyclonus storm off in a huff, and Cyclonus needed to be here for Whirl’s plan to work.   
  
Speaking of…  
  
“Meanwhile, Tailgate over here is a star pupil,” Whirl observed as he peered over Tailgate’s shoulder in the next stall and nodded approvingly at the neat blastershots in a tight cluster on the target’s chest. “Don’t tell Swerve. He’ll be so jealous you’re better than he is at this.”   
  
Tailgate beamed up at him. “I’ve been practicing.”   
  
“I’ll bet you have!” Whirl teasingly socked him on the shoulder, and Tailgate rocked in place. He leaned down, whispered conspiratorially. “Maybe take Cyclonus out for a few private lessons, eh?” He’d wink, if he could.   
  
Tailgate’s field blushed that soft pink again. “Give him hands-on instruction, you mean?” he asked, equally soft, but definitely sly.   
  
Whirl chortled and straightened. “You’re not as shy as you pretend you are,” he declared and leaned back over to peer into Cyclonus’ stall.   
  
Cyclonus was focusing very hard on his blaster, glaring at it truthfully, as though he could force it into making him a better shot. “I much prefer the honor of killing an opponent at close range,” he muttered.   
  
“There’s no honor in killing at all,” Whirl commented. He leaned against the panel separating the two stalls, so he could easily peek into one and then the other. “It’s just killing.”   
  
Cyclonus slanted him a look. “How remarkably philosophical of you.”   
  
Whirl squinted. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to insult me or not.”   
  
“That was actually a compliment,” Tailgate said before the distinct sound of a blaster firing echoed from his stall.   
  
Whirl leaned over to watch as three rapid-fire shots took out the head of a target in the furthest row. Tailgate stood there, both hands gripping the blaster, feet spread and braced, determined and fierce, and probably Whirl shouldn’t find him adorable like this, but he did.   
  
Cyclonus leaned around Whirl, oddly close, enough Whirl felt the heat of Cyclonus’ armor against his back, and peered at Tailgate’s progress.   
  
“There is something wrong with the universe,” Cyclonus said.   
  
Whirl snorted. “You can’t be good at  _everything_ ,” he said.   
  
“Then you find me to be skilled at some things,” Cyclonus replied, and his voice was an amused, appreciative hum behind Whirl’s shoulder. “Good to know.”   
  
He stepped back into his stall, leaving Whirl to squint at him. What in the universe was that about? He would have asked aloud, but Cyclonus chose that moment to lift his blaster and fire, stance incorrect, and shots wildly inaccurate.   
  
Whirl sighed.   
  
“I think I should get a bigger gun now,” Tailgate declared as his score flashed on the console in front of him – a new personal best. “Don’t you?” He turned to peer up at Whirl with a bright visor and lowered his voice. “And Cyclonus should probably stick to swords.”   
  
“You are not as quiet as you think you are, Tailgate,” Cyclonus said.   
  
Tailgate laughed. “Then it’s a good thing I don’t care if you heard me or not.”  
  
Whirl’s spark grew three sizes. Because his plan was working. They were talking, bantering, flirting, and it was thanks to him.   
  
Was this what it felt like to be an evil genius?  
  


~

  
  
“Oh no, it happened again,” Whirl said with a dramatic flail of his arms as Cyclonus and Tailgate arrived in the oil reservoir at the same time. He started to wonder if they planned it this way.   
  
Cyclonus folded his arms.   
  
Tailgate laughed and flung his arms around Whirl in an impromptu hug that made Whirl freeze out of surprise. He lowered his arms and gamely patted Tailgate on the shoulder, his field stickily clinging to the warm affection offered by Tailgate.   
  
“Your subtlety has not improved,” Cyclonus said.   
  
“I think it’s sweet,” Tailgate said.   
  
“I swear it was an accident,” Whirl declared without a single stutter. “I really need a personal assistant. Know anyone up for the job, Legs?”   
  
Tailgate tilted his head and pretended to think, one finger tapping at the corner of his facemask. “I don’t know. Does it come with benefits?”   
  
Whirl would have leered, if he could. Instead, he leaned closer and fluttered his optic in a wink. “Depends on the kind you’re looking for, sweetspark.”   
  
Tailgate grabbed his hand by the wrist and drew it closer, examining Whirl’s claw with an odd intensity. “Hmm,” he said, humming contemplatively. “You did offer to help me out the next time I needed it.”   
  
“Uh.” Whirl looked at Cyclonus warily, but the other mech had his arms folded and watched them with an unreadable expression. His field gave away nothing. “But uh, then you never called, and you know, I can take a hint.”   
  
Whirl chuckled, playful, and extricated his wrist before either of them got the wrong idea. “So you’re here, you and Cyclonus both, so why don’t we just spend the time together?”   
  
Phew. That was just weird.   
  
Tailgate nodded and bounced on his heels. “Sounds good to me.” He paused and glanced up at Cyclonus. “You don’t mind, right, Cyclonus?” His voice canted upward at the end, hopeful and wanting.  
  
Whirl waited, like Tailgate, silently promising pain to Cyclonus if he took that hope and crushed it beneath his stoic feet.   
  
There was a long, grave moment before Cyclonus tipped his head in the tiniest of nods. “I have no plans otherwise.” He dropped his arms, gaze assessing as it traveled over Whirl from top to bottom. “What form of entertainment did you devise this time around?”   
  
Whirl swallowed over a lump in his intake and gestured behind him, to the oil reservoir at large. “Picnic,” he declared. “Under the stars.”   
  
It was suitably romantic. He’d get them settled, get them sitting close, treats and engex between them, and then he’d make his escape. Swerve was supposed to ping him with some kind of emergency only Whirl could assist with, and then he’d leave and watch from afar with a handily arranged camcorder courtesy of Rewind. Just to make sure they didn’t implode in his absence.   
  
That was the plan.   
  
“Sounds wonderful,” Tailgate said.   
  
“Interesting,” Cyclonus said.   
  
Whirl squinted at him. “Is that a slight on my activity planning?”   
  
Cyclonus arched one orbital ridge at him. “Not at all. Only that you’ve chosen an activity better suited for romantic endeavors than friendly ones.”   
  
“How narrow-minded of you Cyclonus!” Whirl declared with grandiose gestures. He walked backward, leading them toward the set-up he’d put into place while waiting for them to arrive. “Platonic friendship can be expressed in numerous ways.”   
  
Cyclonus gave him a steady look.  
  
Tailgate chuckled warmly and squeezed Whirl’s wrist. “You learned that from Rung, didn’t you?”   
  
“I am brilliant all on my own.” Whirl plopped down on a corner of the mat he’d dragged in here, awkwardly bending his legs in front of him. “Come on. Sit down. I put a lot of work into this, you know.”   
  
“And it shows,” Tailgate said as he sat down also, leaving space next to him for Cyclonus to join them. “Thank you, Whirl. This was very sweet of you.”   
  
“Damn straight.” Whirl’s rotors clicked and spun.   
  
Whirl grabbed the small container he’d lugged down here and started pulling out little bottles of engex – handily supplied by Swerve – and a box of treat sticks for Tailgate and some of those little chewy things Cyclonus liked. There was also a small speaker and he’d uploaded some suitably romantic tunes to set a proper mood.   
  
“All this from a mech who doesn’t plan,” Cyclonus lifted one of the chewy treats, giving it a tentative sniff before popping it into his mouth. His face betrayed nothing, but the flutter of delight in his field happened too quickly for him to hide it.   
  
“That’s him saying thank you,” Tailgate said.   
  
Whirl chortled. “It’s a good thing he has you around to translate for him.”   
  
Cyclonus sniffed imperiously and snagged another treat from the plate. “I can speak for myself.” Clawed fingers fiddled with the springy energon chew before he slipped it into his mouth.   
  
“Except you don’t,” Whirl pointed out with a claw. “You brood out the window and make all these vague comments that no one can interpret. Except, apparently, Tailgate.” He huffed a laugh. “The Cyclonus-whisperer, eh?” He nudged Tailgate with an elbow.   
  
Tailgate popped one of the treat sticks into his intake. “It’s an important service I provide.”   
  
Cyclonus sighed. But the look he gave Tailgate was inordinately fond. He sat close enough to Tailgate that their knees touched, and their fields entangled at the furthest edges. They exchanged a glance, one that was warm and affectionate, and seriously, how could they not realize how much they loved each other already?  
  
Whirl’s comm chirped right on time.   
  
“It’s your friendly bartender get-out-of-awkward-situations call,” Swerve sang cheerily into the comm.   
  
Whirl held up a hand, swiveled his upper torso away from the two lovebirds, and made a show of replying. “And not a moment too soon,” he replied internally because he was the mech with a plan, and he didn’t need the two suspicious not-yet-lovers to call him out on it just yet. “What fake emergency do you have for me?”   
  
“What? I actually have to come up with something? You didn’t tell me that part!” Swerve complained, and before Whirl could retort, he continued in a rush, “Besides, our captain is here and he’s causing a ruckus, and I don’t really have time for this.”   
  
Oh. Well. If  _Rodimus_  was there, clearly he took precedence. Whirl wished he had two optics just so he could roll both of them.   
  
“You’re not being helpful,” Whirl retorted.   
  
“I’m helping!”   
  
“Only the bare minimum!”   
  
Swerve huffed into the comm. “It’s not like you’re paying me. I’ve got a business to run, I’ve got customers, and for crying out loud someone get him off the table!”   
  
The comm went dead.   
  
Well.   
  
Whirl coughed a ventilation and turned back to Cyconus and Tailgate, processor whirring in an attempt to come up with a good lie. They looked at him with matching stares of confusion and curiosity, leaning in toward each other like the adorable set of star-crossed lovers they were.   
  
“Oh dear,” Whirl said, in the patented tone of Dramatic Disappointment he’d been practicing for days. “Swerve needs my help with something. I need to--”  
  
Tailgate snorted. “Whatever it is, he can handle it,” he interrupted and scooted closer to Whirl, patting Whirl’s knee with one hand while offering one of the small containers of engex with the other, a straw sticking jauntily from the opening. “You went to all the trouble to arrange this. You should stay and enjoy it.” His field reached out as well, warm and inviting, and Whirl’s own responded in kind, completely without his permission.   
  
It tangled with the threads of Tailgate’s allure. It pulsed a soft wave of heat through Whirl’s frame, and honestly, it was completely unfair how adorable Tailgate was. How he’d started out a liar, but everything about the way he interacted with others was so completely genuine, it was at odds to Whirl’s past experience. The war hadn’t tainted him yet.   
  
The tiniest kernel of hope nestled deep within Whirl’s spark wished that it never did.   
  
The warmth of Tailgate’s field, however, was not for Whirl. It was for Cyclonus, and if Whirl didn’t vamoose, he worried Tailgate might forget that.   
  
“I really should--”  
  
“Stay right where you are,” Cyclonus interrupted with an almost serene look as he sipped at the engex, head tilted with contemplation. “This is an interesting blend. Familiar almost.” His mouth curved into a frown, not one of anger, but reflection. “I wonder if Swerve has been reading up on old recipes.”   
  
“He did say he was!” Tailgate answered, perking. His hand remained on Whirl’s knee, however, as if trying to keep him in place. “He said Bluestreak brought a whole bunch of datapads and stuff with him, and they’ve been going through them together, trying to recreate stuff from before, you know, the war and all.”   
  
Cyclonus nodded slowly. “That’s thoughtful of him. I feel I’ve underestimated Swerve.”   
  
Tailgate giggled. “You underestimate everyone.”   
  
“Perhaps you’re not wrong,” Cyclonus allowed, slowly. His optics shifted to Whirl, and there was something in the shade of them that pinned Whirl in place. “There’s not a single emergency I can imagine where Swerve could possibly need your presence.”   
  
Whirl groped for a response to contradict Cyclonus, but his well of deviousness ran dry. He… really hadn’t thought this through, had he?   
  
“So stay,” Tailgate said. “Please?”   
  
He looked up at Whirl with a bright, pleading visor, and all of Whirl’s protests crumpled like they were made of paper.   
  
“Yeah, okay,” he said. He didn’t want their disappointment to ruin his carefully crafted plans, after all.   
  
He’d just make sure they were alone together next time was all.   
  


~

  
  
Next time would have to wait, Whirl reflected, because then there was a planet with a weird half-metal, half-organic monster creature thing that tried to eat them, and Megatron blamed Rodimus, and Rodimus laughed about it, because they all got a work out in the end, and no one died, what was the big deal, sheesh.   
  
No one died but Whirl got a fair sized dent and one of the creature’s mini-mes took a bite out of Cyclonus’ leg, so the both of them were cradled up together in the medbay with Tailgate fretting and hovering like the cute little nurse he was sometimes.   
  
“Just a plate wound,” Whirl declared, feeling droopy and floaty because First Aid always offered the good pain chips where Ratchet tended to be stingy.   
  
“I’ve had worse,” Cyclonus agreed.   
  
“You’re both masochists,” Tailgate wailed, fingers tangled together.   
  
Cyclonus and Whirl shared a commiserating, understanding look. Civilians. Honestly.   
  
“We’ll be fine,” Whirl slurred as the world spun a little around him, but that was alright because Tailgate had a grip on one of his claws, holding him in place. Giving him a center-point to focus on.   
  
Cyclonus held out a hand, and Tailgate sitting between their medberths, reached out with his other and clasped his fingers with Cyclonus’. “It’s alright, little one,” he said, voice painfully gentle and making Whirl’s spark squeeze.   
  
Primus, they were so damn cute.   
  


~

  
  
Later Whirl paced around his quarters, racking his processor for another step in stage two of the plan.   
  
Cyclonus and Tailgate progressed smoothly, but they were still distant to one another, as far as Whirl could tell. No love confessions had been made. They weren’t soppily hanging on each other like newly-bonded should. They needed more of a push.   
  
And Whirl needed another idea.   
  
Someone pinged his door.   
  
That was unusual enough. No one came to visit Whirl. No one actively sought him out. It threw him off a little, this ping at his door. He hadn’t broken any of the important rules lately. No way it was Ultra Magnus.   
  
Whirl opened the door.   
  
It was Cyclonus.   
  
Whirl squinted. “Did I set up a sparring session and forget?”   
  
“No.” Cyclonus stood there, parade-rest, hands clasped behind his back. “Though if you’re interested in one, that makes this a lot easier.”   
  
What the frag was ‘this’?  
  
Whirl scratched the back of his head. “Well, I mean, I’m always up for a fight.” He twitched his front cannons, set the barrels to spinning. “If you know what I mean.”   
  
“You make it fairly obvious.” Cyclonus’ lips twitched, almost like a smile. He half-turned like an invitation. “But if not sparring, a drink?”   
  
Whirl’s fans stalled, and he had to manually restart them. He peered at Cyclonus, wondering if he’d fallen into recharge at some point and was now dreaming. “You’re asking me to join you for a social occasion?”   
  
“We are friends, are we not?” Cyclonus asked, saying ‘friends’ slowly and carefully as though tasting the word to see if he liked the shape of it or not.   
  
“True,” Whirl admitted, and he leaned into the hallway, looking it up and down. “No Tailgate?” He wasn’t disappointed or confused, but an odd mix of both.   
  
Cyclonus arched an orbital ridge. “We do come separately, you know.”   
  
“Pity,” Whirl replied, only half-joking. He stepped out of his room, letting the door shut behind him. “Alright. I’ll bite. What’s on your mind, Cyclonus?” It’s kind of weird, but maybe Cyclonus wanted advice or something. Not like Whirl was the kind of mech anyone would come to for advice, but to each his own.   
  
They were friends of a flavor. Maybe Cyclonus didn’t think he could trust anyone else. Which meant this was probably about Tailgate.   
  
Claws crossed.   
  
“What did you do?” Cyclonus asked as he tucked his hands back behind his back and started down the corridor, leaving Whirl to fall in step behind him. “Before the war?”   
  
Whirl blinked. “Uh, you mean before these?” He lifted his claws for reference. “Or you know, the thing I did that kind of sort of started the war before the war? Because those are two separate things, and also, why?” What in the universe did this have to do with Tailgate?  
  
Cyclonus hummed in his intake. “Whichever you feel more comfortable discussing. My past is relatively common knowledge, but I’ve come to realize I don’t know much about you.”   
  
“And that matters why?”   
  
Cyclonus gave him a steadying look. Whirl got the feeling it spoke something like ‘duh’ except Whirl honestly didn’t know the answer to that question.   
  
“Because I would like to know,” Cyclonus said.   
  
Whirl tilted his head to the left and the right. He moved closer, peering down at Cyclonus, tentatively poking at his field. Yeah, this was definitely Cyclonus. He was definitely awake. And Cyclonus felt genuine.   
  
“I made chronos,” Whirl answered slowly, carefully. Odd, though, that his first instinct had been to honest. He hadn’t once considered a lie. “And if you think you don’t like me now, you really wouldn’t have liked me then.”   
  
“Why is that?”   
  
“Because I was an aft,” Whirl said, blunt. He could say it now, because he could recognize it, and yeah, he might not have been a good mech. But that didn’t give anyone the right to take his life from him.   
  
He was who he was, and now he is who he is, and that was just the way things were. He could be honest about who he was because then it was that much easier to accept who he is.   
  
Whirl could, theoretically, get ‘fixed’ to quote Swerve. Without a war, with a lot of down time, he could go to Ratchet and get ‘fixed’. But Whirl wasn’t broken, this was who he was, and getting ‘fixed’ wouldn’t actually fix him. It wouldn’t make anything better, it wouldn’t change the past.   
  
He was who he was. And if mechs didn’t want him as he was, then they didn’t deserve what he could be. Plain and simple.   
  
Cyclonus lifted both orbital ridges. “Then that is something we have in common.”   
  
Whirl chuckled. “Except we’re still afts now.”   
  
“That as well.”   
  
They paused in front of Visages. Trust Cyclonus to pick the quieter, more intimate of the two bars on the Lost Light.   
  
“And did you enjoy it?” Cyclonus asked as he pushed through the door and Whirl followed him, still curious despite himself.   
  
“Enjoy what? Being an aft? Because yeah, that was kind of fun.”   
  
“No. Your prior occupation.”   
  
Whirl’s spark squeezed into a tiny knot. He lapsed into silence and trailed Cyclonus to a table in the far corner, isolated from the other, smaller groups of mechs conversing in low, quiet tones. Soft music floated from surrounding speakers, tinny and lacking in lyrics. Not completely unappealing, but no words left the music a bit bland in Whirl’s point of view.   
  
They sat.   
  
Cyclonus perched across from Whirl, hands folded on the table in front of him, face a mask of patience.   
  
Whirl fidgeted on the cushions. He admired the décor, so muted compared to Swerve’s, and a bit snobbish. Just like Mirage, come to think of it.   
  
A serving bot came by, took their order, and returned with it, by the time Whirl finally managed to put his thoughts in some semblance of order. The service here was so much better. Whirl debated for all of a half-second mentioning as much to Swerve, but then, that would be cruel for no reason, and Whirl had stopped being cruel for the sake of it.   
  
“It was what I chose for myself,” Whirl finally answered, once he’d had a long pull of the strong engex Cyclonus so graciously bought for him with the apparently endless amount of creds he had. “Before Megatron and the Decepticons started their little revolution, that was a thing that didn’t happen much. But I wanted to make chronos, so they let me make chronos, until they decided they wouldn’t anymore.”   
  
He cycled a ventilation and took another long pull of the engex, draining the cup until it was near empty. The engex sat hot and light in his tanks, but it emboldened him.   
  
Cyclonus’ even stare was only mildly perturbing. “You were lucky, for a time.”   
  
“Until I wasn’t.” Whirl snorted. He hunched his shoulders. He squinted at Cyclonus. “What’s with the spark to spark anyway? What’s it matter?”   
  
Cyclonus curled a hand around his cup and leaned forward, his field reaching out, warm and tentative, and Whirl leaned into it before he realized what he was doing.   
  
“Because we are friends,” he said. “And the more I know about you, the less likely I am to want to kill you.”   
  
There was a moment of stunned silence before Whirl burst into laughter. Because it took him that long to realize Cyclonus had made a joke, a playful one, and there was a disconnect in his reasoning. Cyclonus? Did not joke. Specifically, Cyclonus did not joke with him, and yet, he just had.   
  
It was wild.   
  
So wild.   
  
Whirl laughed and laughed and downed the rest of his engex. “Okay,” he said, once he’d gathered himself, amusement fluttering through his field like the spiraling rays of starlight. “Then ask away, friend.”   
  
Cyclonus smiled, and though it was a small thing, it made Whirl’s spark lurch in a way he hadn’t felt in centuries.   
  
Oh.   
  
Well.   
  
That was unfortunate.   
  


~

  
  
Fate didn’t give him much time to recover from that unexpected epiphany. The one that told him he didn’t hate Cyclonus or despise him or loathe him or dislike him. Instead, he found he rather liked the sullen purple mech, and that like probably extended beyond the realm of friendship and into a different domain. One that wondered what it would feel like to have those clawed hands on his frame.   
  
It was absurd.   
  
Cyclonus clearly loved Tailgate and vice versa. Whirl had no business harboring any kind of interest in either of them. So he tucked away his sudden and random attraction, buried it deep, and resolved to not let it affect him at all.   
  
Should’ve been easy. He was a master at concealing his emotions.   
  
Until Tailgate waylaid him right outside the door of the washracks, Whirl’s armor still a bit damp and dripping because it was not the easiest thing in the universe, to dry oneself with hands that weren’t hands, but instead barely manipulated claws. He did the best he could and frag anyone who complained otherwise.   
  
Yes, that meant you Ultra Magnus.   
  
“Good, you’re not busy,” Tailgate said as Whirl blinked at him dumbly. He grabbed Whirl’s claw by the wrist and started towing him down the corridor. “Come on. Let’s go.”   
  
“Where are we going?” Whirl asked, stumbling in the minibot’s wake. Tailgate was… abnormally strong, and Whirl wasn’t sure what to think about that.   
  
“Swerve’s,” Tailgate chirped, his field playfully tickling Whirl’s, bright swirls of color that spoke of frivolity and affection.   
  
“Why?”   
  
“Because I want you to come with me, and you’re not busy,” Tailgate replied, his tone implying the ‘duh’ as though this should have been obvious to Whirl. He’d been learning from Cyclonus apparently.   
  
Whirl peered up the hall and over his shoulder. It was oddly deserted. “Where’s Cyclonus?”   
  
“I don’t know. Meditating maybe.” Tailgate shrugged, dismissive but not upset. Usually, this would be the point where he moped because Cyclonus was disinterested in spending time with him. “Did you know Rewind has all kinds of vids stored in his memory banks? I just spent half a day watching old commercials.”   
  
Whirl’s processor spun. “Rewind stores everything.”   
  
“Yeah, but commercials?” Tailgate laughed and slowed his pace a little, taking them down to a casual stroll, though his fingers remained linked around Whirl’s wrist. “Why would anyone want to remember those?”   
  
“Nostalgia?” Whirl hazarded a guess.   
  
Tailgate hummed. “You might have a point.” He looked up at Whirl, sidelong, almost sly. “Did you have any shows you liked to watch? Before the war, I mean?”  
  
“Uh. Probably.” Whirl scratched at the underside of his head. “Can’t really remember though. This thing don’t store as well as it ought.” He tapped his head for emphasis.   
  
Tailgate slowed even further, until they walked step in step, and he could nudge Whirl’s hip with a shoulder. “That’s okay. I can borrow some vidfiles from Rewind and maybe we can find some old stuff you used to like or old stuff you can like now.”   
  
“Wouldn’t you rather do that with Cyclonus?”   
  
“I can do it with you, too, can’t I?” Tailgate asked with a little huff. “My world doesn’t begin and end with Cyclonus, you know.”   
  
Whirl flickered his optics. “Really? Cause that’s news to me.” And possibly the whole crew of the Lost Light. The little romantic sidestep those two have been doing was the stuff of legend at this point.   
  
“I have other friends!” Tailgate said, indignant. “Besides, I like spending time with you.”   
  
Whirl’s spark performed that odd flutter it wasn’t supposed to know. “I thought the sole purpose of that was to help you catch Cyclonus?”   
  
Tailgate’s visor went flat. “I’m not that selfish! Do you think I’m that selfish? Do I come across as that selfish?” Panic flared in his visor, and he squeezed Whirl’s wrist, field suddenly flush with apology. “I’m so sorry if that’s what you thought. I mean, you’re weird and dangerous, but I still like you anyway.”   
  
“… Thanks?” Honestly, he didn’t know who sucked more at giving compliments, Tailgate or Cyclonus. They were made for each other.   
  
“You’re welcome!” Tailgate beamed and tugged Whirl into Swerve’s, towing him right to the bar where they took two stools, Whirl once again having to lift Tailgate into his.   
  
The minibot giggled, legs kicking in an unfairly cute manner.   
  
“You know, we could solve this problem by sitting in a booth,” Whirl pointed out as he slid into the stool beside Tailgate, lowering it a little so they were on an even keel.   
  
Tailgate propped his elbow on the bar counter and his head on his hand. “But then I’d lose the excuse to let you touch me.”   
  
Whirl would have gaped, had he a mouth. Instead, his vocalizer spat static, and Tailgate’s rolling chuckle filled the silence between them.   
  
“Drinks are on me this time,” he said as he straightened and tried to lean over the counter, waving a hand wildly to get Swerve’s attention.   
  
Good luck that. Skids was on the far end of the counter, and so long as he was there, they weren’t getting anything to drink anytime soon. Maybe they’d get lucky and spy Bluestreak somewhere around here.   
  
“If you insist,” Whirl said.   
  
Tailgate sagged back into his stool, shoulders slumped. “I think you need a new project, Whirl. Swerve is clearly in more need of your help than I am.”   
  
Whirl chuckled. “Not even I’m talented enough to solve that crisis.” Poor Swerve. Poor Skids. Both of them oblivious. Whirl didn’t even know if Swerve’s interest was returned or genuine.   
  
Swerve tended to fall for the charismatic ones. But his crushes also tended to leap from one pretty face to another. He liked to flirt, Swerve did. Whirl just wasn’t sure Swerve liked to settle down.   
  
“Oh well.” Tailgate sighed. “At least we get to have some fun soon, right?”   
  
“Right.” Whirl didn’t know how Rodimus had convinced both Megatron and Ultra Magnus to make a much needed and welcome pitstop at the waystation Quartex, but the whole crew was abuzz with delight about it.   
  
Quartex was huge, full of fun and games and utterly welcoming to not only mechanicals, but Cybertronians as well. It was the closest thing to paradise they’d found since Hedonia.   
  
“I’m dragging Cyclonus out with me. You’re coming, too,” Tailgate said, almost offhand.   
  
“Right,” Whirl said, half-distracted by thoughts of what weapons stores he might stumble across. He paused, rewound the conversation, and swiveled toward Tailgate. “Wait. What? Shouldn’t you and Hornhead be able to go on your own dates now?”   
  
Tailgate leaned against the counter, but his head tilted toward Whirl. “Why would we when we can go with you?”   
  
“Uh, you don’t need a chaperone. You two seem to be getting along just fine to me,” Whirl pointed out, because as far as he could tell, the biggest problem the two of them had was that they were too love in with each other to realize that they were, in fact, in love with each other.   
  
Tailgate laughed, his visor sparkling. “You’re not a chaperone,” he said. “Besides, we want you there. It’s always more fun when you’re there.”   
  
Whirl squinted. He poked Tailgate in the shoulder. “That doesn’t make any sense.”   
  
“Is that a no?” Tailgate asked, and his field flowed with hope, and he looked so earnest and excited.   
  
Whirl sighed. “Look, Legs, if you want me there, I’ll be there.” Somehow, he would learn how to say no to Tailgate. Today was not that day. “But sooner or later, you two gotta figure this out on your own.”   
  
“Oh, we will.” Tailgate beamed. “But we still like it with you.”   
  
“Boy, that’s a confession if I ever heard one,” Swerve interjected as he sidled up, perfectly timed to distract Tailgate from what had been a stunned burst in Whirl’s field, followed by a surge of affectionate warmth.   
  
“I think you’re projecting,” Tailgate said with a pointed look toward the other end of the counter, where Skids was departing with Brainstorm and Nautica.   
  
Swerve chuckled. “I’m making progress,” he said and leaned on the counter, closer to Tailgate, conspiratorial. “As are you with Cyclonus, I hear. Congratulations.”   
  
Tailgate’s field flushed. “We’ve been talking,” he said, almost shy, except Whirl knew far better. Tailgate was not shy. At all.   
  
He was just a really, really good actor.   
  
Whirl had to give him points for that.   
  
“Good for you.” Swerve clapped his hands and leaned back. “Drinks on me then. The usual I presume.” His visor slid to Whirl, who nodded agreement.   
  
Words, it seemed, were still beyond him. Because his spark kept wanting to do this twirly-dance around Tailgate, and that wouldn’t do.   
  
That wouldn’t do at all.   
  


***


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three**

  
Stage three of the plan was supposed to involve Whirl collecting his creds and toasting Swerve with a lifetime of free drinks (limited to one der say), all while sitting back and watching the fruits of his labor.   
  
Tailgate and Cyclonus would be disgustingly cute as they cuddled together because Cyclonus would unbend long enough to actually accept the starry gaze in Tailgate’s visor. Tailgate, also, would grow a spinal strut, throw himself into Cyclonus’ arms, and admit how much he was head over heels for his impromptu roommate. They would embrace, fields knitting together, and the tension level of the Lost Light would ratchet down to a more manageable level for everyone involved.   
  
Instead, stage three involved Whirl spending far more time than he could have ever anticipated with Tailgate, with Cyclonus, and with the both of them together. He couldn’t seem to go anywhere without tripping over one of them, and every encounter came with an invitation he couldn’t seem to decline.   
  
Apparently, they both meant it when they said they wanted to be friends with him. He didn’t know it meant being the rotary-shaped meat in a CyGate sandwich. He really liked that term CyGate, by the way. He wasn’t sure who first coined the amalgamated name for the duo, but he liked it, because they weren’t just Cylonus and Tailgate anymore. Nope, they were CyGate now, and they were everywhere Whirl looked.   
  
They were also CyGate plus Whirl.   
  
They invited him stargazing, the three of them laid out on a tarp or magnetically attached to the hull, staring up at the star clusters and picking constellations out of them. Cyclonus told them old, old stories no one knew anymore. Tailgate made up stories. Whirl turned them lewd.   
  
He and Cyclonus sparred almost daily now, as often as their schedules allowed. Cyclonus taught Whirl some of the finer points of hand to hand. Whirl educated Cyclonus in proper blaster usage.   
  
Cyclonus still couldn’t aim to save his spark. Thank Primus he was deadly with a sword. Whirl continued to find it adorable.   
  
Tailgate dragged him out for fun and games, sometimes with a group, sometimes with himself, often with Cyclonus attached. He pulled Whirl out for karaoke night, game night; he convinced Cyclonus to teach them both how to play old Cybertronian board games, and as difficult as the tiny pieces were to manipulate, Whirl still enjoyed himself.   
  
It was weird. Whirl couldn’t deny it was really weird. But honestly, he was just glad Cyclonus and Tailgate were blossoming together. His plan was working, however weirdly it was working.   
  
And yeah, maybe it was a bit odd, that whenever Tailgate and Cyclonus held hands with each other, they reached out and held Whirl’s claw. Well, Tailgate did. Cyclonus seemed to prefer resting a hand on Whirl’s knee instead. Possessive maybe? Whirl wasn’t sure. He let it slide because no one else complained or seemed bothered, and if they needed him there as some kind of buffer, then he’d be a fragging buffer.   
  
He wanted them happy.   
  
Maybe that was the weirdest part of it all, Whirl wanting someone else to be happy. Sure, there were creds on the line, and Whirl could blame it on that. But honestly, his spark bubbled whenever he was around the two of them, and he wanted to see them happy with each other.   
  
True, they made him happy also, but Whirl considered his own feelings secondary. So what if he thought Tailgate was the most adorable little minibot, and all he wanted to do was scoop Tailgate into his arms and make him laugh. So what if he thought Cyclonus’ brooding was actually rather charming, and when he unbent long enough to let someone in, there was an actual person underneath and not just more melancholy.   
  
It didn’t matter. Whirl’s fluorescing emotions didn’t matter, because Cyclonus and Tailgate were for each other, not for him. He was an instigator. He was here to make them happy. They were meant for each other, and he belonged nowhere in the equation.   
  
That was the honest, Primus-given truth.   
  
He buried the feelings down, down, down, like the feelings about everything else he didn’t want to acknowledge. He was pretty good at it by now. Stage three was technically on track, if anyone asked.   
  
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise when he walked into Swerve’s and saw them together. It shouldn’t have squeezed his spark, made him stall in the doorway, forcing Skids to nudge him the rest of the way inside.   
  
He didn’t know why the sight struck him as wrong, when it should have filled him with triumphant glee. He wanted to crow with delight, but there was a part of him that felt as though he’d been punched in the spark. He felt… he felt like they’d left him out, that he was supposed to be there next to them, which didn’t make a lick of sense.   
  
They were in the far corner, the closest thing to a private, intimate booth Swerve’s had. They sat close, holding hands, fingers tangled, half-empty glasses of engex in front of them. They were fully engaged with each other. Whirl doubted they were aware of the world beyond their booth.   
  
Whirl staggered over to the bar, stumbling into an empty stool, and Swerve noticed him immediately, probably because he wanted to celebrate their victory. “It’s about time, isn’t it?” he said with a pointed look CyGate’s direction.   
  
Whirl snorted. “You’re telling me.” He rapped his claw on the counter. “Does it count for the bet yet?”   
  
“Mmm. That’s a good question.” Swerve leaned on the counter, staring their direction, a soft sigh emerging from his vents. “We’ll have to ask Skids. He’s running the books.”   
  
Whirl made a noncommittal noise. He didn’t care about the wager anymore. “You ask,” he said. “Give me whatever you got that’s strong.”   
  
“That doesn’t sound like someone who should be celebrating.” Swerve ducked under the counter and emerged with something that was a violent purple, several shades darker than Cyclonus’ paint.   
  
Whirl swore it bubbled. It would burn in all the best ways. If he was lucky, it would help him set afire the emotions he wasn’t supposed to have, leaving the ash to bury.   
  
He snatched it from Swerve and plunked his auto-injector into it. “You managed to snag Skids yet?” he asked, tone sour and maybe a bit cruel, but he didn’t want a bartender’s advice right now.   
  
He wanted to get wasted enough to forget.   
  
“Oh, touchy.” Swerve lifted his hands and backed up a step. “I’ll just leave you to your engex, and maybe when you feel like being polite, I’ll come back and check on you.”   
  
Whirl grunted.   
  
Swerve left him alone.   
  
Just the way he liked it.   
  
He didn’t look in CyGate’s direction once.   
  


~

  
  
Whirl thought that was the end of it.   
  
He figured once Cyclonus and Tailgate managed to be together on their own, they wouldn’t need him. If he heard from them again, it would only be once they emerged from the hazy cloud of their honeymoon, the first blush of a new relationship, perhaps reeking of transfluid and ozone, one another’s paint layered over each other’s frames.   
  
He didn’t expect, two days later, to open his door and find both of them standing on the other side of it.   
  
“Come out for a drink with us,” Tailgate said, surging forward and locking his fingers around Whirl’s right wrist, dragging him into the hallway. It became less of a request and more of a demand.   
  
Whirl stumbled, his processor slow on the uptake. “What? Why?”   
  
“Because we invited you.” Cyclonus took up post on Whirl’s other side, arms crossed over his chassis, planting himself. If Whirl wanted to run, he’d have to shake off Tailgate and go through Cyclonus.   
  
Together, they were a force to be reckoned with.   
  
“We want you with us,” Tailgate said, squeezing his wrist. His field licked out, warm where it clamped on Whirl’s.   
  
Whirl honestly couldn’t think of a good reason to decline. “Fine,” he said, with a show of surrender. “But you’re buying the drinks this time around. The two of you have nearly emptied my bank account, you know.”   
  
“As we extended the invitation, that is only to be expected,” Cyclonus said. He didn’t even offer a token protest.   
  
Suspicious. Whirl didn’t completely trust accommodating Cyclonus.   
  
But he went with them anyway. Between them, truth by told, Tailgate jauntily swinging their interlinked hands and all but skipping to keep up with the two mechs with larger strides. Cyclonus walked on Whirl’s other side, rather than next to Tailgate. Whirl half-expected him to grab Whirl’s other hand, but luckily, that absurdity didn’t happen.   
  
“Having a good day today?” Tailgate asked.   
  
Whirl blinked. “Who? Me?”   
  
“Of course you,” Tailgate said with a laugh. He looked up at Whirl, his field offering assurance and affection. “Did you do anything interesting?”   
  
Whirl scratched at the underside of his jaw. “Uh. I cleaned my guns.” He paused, considered, and added, “Could clean yours for you, if you want. Figure you don’t know how or can’t do it properly. Not if you’re relying on this one’s help.” He gestured to Cyclonus.   
  
Tailgate chuckled.   
  
Cyclonus’ look softened into a light glower. “We all have our strengths,” he said, with carefully chosen glyphs.   
  
“Thank you, Whirl. I’ll accept your help,” Tailgate said.   
  
Amusement and camaraderie hummed between them. It was… odd. Because that comment was pretty much guaranteed a glare and a hissed under-threat from Cyclonus. Instead, he’d barely acted flustered, as though the near-insult had flicked off his shoulders without a care in the world.   
  
Weirder and weirder.   
  
They arrived at Swerve’s.   
  
Tailgate barreled through the doors as though he had a destination in mind, and Whirl didn’t have the chance to suggest the table over by Skids and Brainstorm and Nautica. Instead, he was pulled toward a booth in the far corner. It was a bit more private, more intimate…   
  
Exactly the booth Tailgate and Cyclonus had used for canoodling the other day in fact.   
  
Whirl shook off Tailgate’s hold, relieved he didn’t have to use much force. “I’ll get the drinks for us. Put it on your tab.” Whirl backed away from the table. He couldn’t explain why it bothered him, just that it did.   
  
“The server bot can bring them,” Tailgate said, and even without a mouth, Whirl could tell he was pulling off a pout.   
  
“My tab, not Tailgate’s,” Cyclonus called.   
  
Whirl didn’t reply. He scurried toward the bar, making a beeline toward Swerve, the most confused he’d been in weeks. What were they thinking?   
  
“Are we in a better mood today?” Swerve asked once Whirl managed to flag down his attention. He leaned to the side, glancing past Whirl. “Well, you ought to be, with company like that.”   
  
“It’s weird,” Whirl said, because he needed to tell someone, and Swerve was the only one who had any clue what was going on. “Shouldn’t they be able to do this without me by now?”   
  
“Are you kidding? Those two?” Swerve burst into laughter, hands braced on the edge of the counter, his field flaring with amusement. “They’re never going to be okay without you holding their hands.”   
  
Whirl stared at him. “That’s stupid. If they can’t make it without me, what’s the point?”   
  
Swerve tapped his nose. “What’s the point indeed, eh?” His hands slipped behind the counter and three cups spun into view, two of them spiked with a brightly colored straw. “You ever considered maybe they just like you?”   
  
“That’s even stupider.”   
  
Swerve shrugged and snapped his fingers, summoning one of his serv-bots to his side. Nice of him, since Whirl couldn’t carry three drinks on his own.   
  
“I just call ‘em like I see ‘em,” Swerve said and slid the tray over to the serv-bots steadier hands. “You don’t believe me? Ask them yourself.”  
  
It was quite possibly the most brilliant, dumbest idea Swerve had ever given him. Ask? Talk? Since when did Whirl do anything so straightforward? Bah.   
  
Still, Whirl offered the unhelpful bartender a solid glare – couldn’t let him get a big head over being helpful – and stomped back toward the table where Cyclonus and Tailgate waited. The serv-bot had gotten there before him, depositing their drinks and taking off again.   
  
“Welcome back!” Tailgate scooted over, making room for Whirl beside him.   
  
He dropped down into the booth. He had every intention of asking them why they still needed his help, but his nerve failed him in that moment. Especially when Tailgate scuttled up against his side, tucking close enough Whirl felt obligated to lift his arm and drape it over Tailgate’s shoulder.   
  
By the delight in Tailgate’s field, he’d made the right choice. By the intent look Cyclonus now directed his way, Whirl felt more than a little challenged.   
  
“What?” he demanded, indignant. It was completely innocent and platonic snuggling. In public. What could possibly be the problem? “It’s not my fault he doesn’t have a concept of personal space.”   
  
Cyclonus tilted his head. “You think I’m angry.”   
  
“You do have an angry face, Cyclonus,” Tailgate said with a giggle. His hand rested on Whirl’s chassis, right below his gun-barrels, and it was an oddly intimate gesture.   
  
Whirl stared at Tailgate’s hand. Or well, in the direction of Tailgate’s hand.   
  
“I’m not angry,” Cyclonus said.   
  
Whirl blinked. He looked up at the dour not-Decepticon, and couldn’t, for the spark of him, read Cyclonus’ expression. “Then what the frag are you?”   
  
Cyclonus’ head tilted the other direction. “Appreciative,” he said, at length. “You two are very appealing together.”   
  
Tailgate’s hand made a light, delicate sweep over Whirl’s abdomen. His fingers tracked a teasing path across transformation seams, his palm warm and inviting.   
  
Whirl narrowed his optic. His frame went stiff, and he swore his spark dropped several hundred degrees. “That’s not funny,” he said, as Swerve’s voice echoed at the back of his mind, a stupid comment Whirl had wanted to be true, as much as he didn’t.   
  
“Then it is a good thing it was not a joke,” Cyclonus said, his tone steady and honest, and his field reaching for Whirl’s with something like genuine interest.   
  
“Yeah, well, you’re not making any sense either,” Whirl spat out, and he shrugged away from Tailgate, putting space between them on the bench. He hovered on the edge of it, torn between staying and going.   
  
Cyclonus frowned, which only made his expression more severe, highlighting the not-funny element of this situation. “I would have thought it were obvious.” He rested his hands on the table, fingers lacing together.   
  
Tailgate beamed up at Whirl, easing close again, his field closing the distance before his frame could with a warm stroke down the edges of Whirl’s. “I think you and Cyclonus would be pretty together, too.”  
  
Whirl was up and out of the booth before Tailgate could physically touch him again. His armor rattled. His knees felt weak. His spark thrummed and danced so quickly, he worried he wasn’t going to be able to catch a vent.   
  
They both stared up at him in surprise.   
  
Whirl sliced a claw through the air. “Look, I don’t know what kind of game you two are playing, but it needs to stop.”   
  
Optics wandered their way. Whirl felt the attention like a hot lash against his back. It was loud in Swerve’s, but like a slow tide, a hush was falling. Drama was Happening, and like the little gossipmongers they were, the crewmembers present were hungry for details.   
  
“There is no game, Whirl,” Cyclonus said.   
  
“Sure feels like one,” Whirl snapped, his voice as abrupt as the tension uncoiling inside of him. “Must have been pretty funny to both of you, pretending like you needed help when all along, you just wanted to laugh at me trying to be helpful.”  
  
Tailgate scrambled to the very edge of the bench, and he had the audacity to look hurt, which was unfair. Whirl’s spark crumbled at the sight, and he had to resist the urge to gather Tailgate up in his arms, and soothe away whatever had caused that expression.   
  
“No one’s laughing,” Tailgate insisted. “We meant--”  
  
And that was enough of that.   
  
“It doesn’t matter what you meant,” Whirl bit out, cutting him off and cutting out the parts of him sympathetic to Tailgate. “I figured it out. I don’t want to hear the rest.” His field flared, betraying his inner turmoil, but at least he had the satisfaction of watching them both flinch.   
  
“I’m done,” Whirl spat, and spun around, nearly knocking over a serving drone in the process.   
  
He stomped away from both of them, other members of the crew parting to let him pass, the weight of their gazes curious and judging.  
  
Tailgate called out to him, but Whirl deftly pretended he hadn’t heard. If Cyclonus spoke, Whirl definitely didn’t hear it. He didn’t care to.   
  
He stalked out of Swerve’s and headed straight for his habsuite, grateful he didn’t have to share with anyone. He didn’t want to answer any questions. He wanted to pace back and forth across the small space of his floor, muttering to himself.   
  
There was no reason to be upset. He might have even been able to laugh it off, were it not for the sudden realization sparking through him like wildfire.   
  
He loved them.   
  
He loved them both.   
  
It wasn’t supposed to happen, but it had. And when Tailgate had insinuated and Cyclonus had implied, it was a spark of hope Whirl had hated to crush. Because it couldn’t be real. They had each other, they didn’t have any need for him. Well, unless they wanted a plaything, which seriously, was probably what it had been about all along.   
  
They strung him up, swept him into their game, probably laughed to each other. It was a cruel prank, but then.   
  
But then.   
  
It’s not like they could have known Whirl would develop actual, genuine, real emotions for them. It wasn’t part of the plan. It was never his intention. It was a cruel twist of fate, was what it was.   
  
He needed to punch something. Destroy something. Blast something to pieces. He needed to do something with this roil of anger and hurt and disappointment building inside of him.   
  
Whirl stomped to his door, jabbing the panel, and it sprang open as if in response to the swirl of fury in his field. He surged through the open doorway without looking, and only instinct had him leaping back from an immediate collision with the two mechs lying in wait, one with a hand poised to knock.   
  
Cyclonus and Tailgate. Of course, it was Cyclonus and Tailgate.   
  
“We need to talk,” Cyclonus said as he slowly lowered his hand.   
  
The other, Whirl noticed, was tightly clasped with Tailgate’s.   
  
Whirl’s mood dove into the negatives. “You’ve talked,” he ground out. “I’ve heard enough.”   
  
“No, you didn’t listen.” Cyclonus surged forward, his free hand curling around Whirl’s upper arm, his field pulsing an imploring note. “You are laboring under a misconception, and as Tailgate and I painfully learned, it does no good to let such things fester.”   
  
Whirl should have shaken him off. He should have pulled away from the warm grip, firm but loose enough not to restrain. He could have yanked himself free.   
  
He didn’t want to. He was rooted in place by the casual touch. Cyclonus didn’t do casual touches.   
  
“We didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” Tailgate added as he let go of Cyclonus’ hand and moved further into Whirl’s space, his field reaching out, warm and hopeful. “We thought you knew that.” His voice quivered.   
  
Guilt tugged at Whirl’s spark. He tried his best to ignore it, but Tailgate’s visor was like a blackhole, sucking away his willpower.   
  
“Our interest is sincere,” Cyclonus said, as if they’d talked about this speech and decided it beforehand.   
  
Whirl blinked. He stared at both of them, gaze dragging from Cyclonus to Tailgate and back again, trying to read in their expressions as much as he poked at their fields for clarity.   
  
“Come again?”   
  
Cyclonus’ hand lingered on his arm. He straightened a little, looking over his shoulder. “Can we discuss this elsewhere?”   
  
Whirl twitched his rotors. “Let me go,” he said, and immediately, Cyclonus did.   
  
He released Whirl as if the request had burned, and even backed up a step, back in line with Tailgate. The minibot gave Whirl another hopeful look, the light behind his visor bright and earnest.   
  
Whirl sighed and turned around, jabbing his code into the lock so the door would open. He moved inside and left enough space for them to follow, if they wanted. Which apparently, they did, Tailgate taking the invitation first with Cyclonus close behind.   
  
The moment the door shut, Tailgate threw himself forward, his arms wrapping around Whirl’s waist in a large, armor-creaking hug. It was warm and affectionate, his field enriching the experience by tangling with the threads of Whirl’s own.   
  
Whirl blinked down at him, arms raised, afraid to return the embrace. “Uh.” He glanced over at Cyclonus, who didn’t seem the least bit perturbed, standing there with his arms loosely crossed. “I don’t get it.”   
  
“Yes, and that is the problem,” Cyclonus said with an audible ex-vent.   
  
Tailgate shifted a little, enough he could look up and see Whirl beyond the jut of his gun-barrels. “This is okay, isn’t it?”   
  
Whirl shook his head and lowered his arms, resting one on Tailgate’s shoulder, the most chaste gesture he could think of. “I don’t know. Is it?” he asked, but the question was directed at Cyclonus, because none of this made any sense.   
  
It was like he’d knocked himself out and entered some sort of fever purge, where his processor was tormenting him with fantasies he couldn’t have. He felt he’d online in the morning with a crashing ache and the sour sensation of cheap engex corroding his tanks.   
  
“That’s not up to me,” Cyclonus said before he unfolded his arms and rubbed a hand down the side of his face. “That is up to Tailgate, and that is up to you, though I am reasonably certain Tailgate is quite comfortable with it.”   
  
Whirl’s claw twitched on Tailgate’s shoulder. “So what? You guys need a permanent buffer and decided I’m it?” he demanded, but there was a small part of him that relaxed, relenting into the insistent press of Tailgate’s field, and the gentler, coaxing stroke of Cyclonus’.   
  
“Of course not!” Tailgate squeezed him tight, like he didn’t want Cyclonus to escape his embrace. “We want you with us because that’s where you belong.”   
  
Whirl swiveled until he could look down at Tailgate, wishing he could divine the truth in Tailgate’s visor. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he spluttered.   
  
“It does to us,” Cyclonus replied, and Whirl’s peripheral sensors tracked Cyclonus getting closer, well within reach now. “That is, if you’ll allow us to show you. Perhaps then it will make sense to you as well.”   
  
Whirl worked his intake. He remembered the engex he never got around to consuming, and wished he had it now. He could use the burn of it, the distraction. Because his free claw was twitching with the urge to pull Cyclonus in, complete the circle, put himself between the two mechs as he’d been wanting to do for ages.  
  
“Please say you’ll try,” Tailgate pleaded, tilting his head to rest it against Whirl’s claw on his shoulder. “Or at least think about it? If you don’t want us, that’s okay, but--”  
  
Whirl shook his head, and his vision spun. “That’s not it.” He carefully extracted himself from Tailgate’s arms, because he couldn’t think with them so close. “Wanting you, that’s not the problem. Having you, now see, that’s the problem.”   
  
Cyclonus tilted his head in an odd gesture that softened his sharp features. “Now you are the one speaking nonsense.”   
  
Tailgate stood between them, his hands tangling together, as though he didn’t know which of them to reach for. That, right there, was one of the many, many problems Whirl’s processor was focusing on. Just like the huge, number one issue he kept shoving down.   
  
The one where he didn’t believe they could actually want him.   
  
“This?” Whirl gestured in a broad circle, his vents clicking noisily. “It’s not going to work.” He pointed between Cyclonus and Tailgate. “You two? Make sense. It’s practically destiny. Your equation does not include one rotary with a deathwish.”   
  
Tailgate planted his hands on his hips. “Says who?” he demanded.   
  
“I think it is up to us who’d we’d like to add to our equation,” Cyclonus said with a moue to his lips that suggested he caught the undertones of Whirl’s argument and they would have words about it later. “Us and whomever we seek to invite.”   
  
Whirl’s arms dangled at his sides, his claws curling inward, blunted tips pressing against his plating. “It’s not going to work.”  
  
“How do you know? You haven’t even tried!” Tailgate stomped a foot, and it shouldn’t have been adorable, but it was. “You’re too afraid to even think about it!”   
  
“Hey now,” Whirl said, anger sputtering amidst it all. “I’m not afraid.”   
  
“No, I believe Tailgate is right.” Cyclonus’ gaze burned, and the touch of his field even more so. “You’ve already decided on the outcome, so you fear making any sort of attempt. You’ve admitted you are fond of us, therefore, the only reason you have for possibly declining is that you are afraid of the end result.”   
  
Tailgate’s field surged, wrapping warm and tender around Whirl’s, like a tangible embrace. “We talked about this, you know,” he said, and there was something soothing about his voice, the cadence of it.   
  
Whirl looked at him, and he ached, and he wanted to agree while the louder, saner part of him shouted at the terrible idea of it.   
  
“About what it meant for us, what it would mean for you, and we decided together we wanted this. We wanted to try.” Tailgate paused and slanted a look at Cyclonus who nodded ever so slightly. “We’re happy together, but we’re incomplete. That’s what we decided.”   
  
Whirl’s vocalizer crackled.   
  
“The choice remains yours,” Cyclonus said, resting a hand on Tailgate’s shoulder as he moved closer, so that the denser layers of his field could touch Whirl’s, giving him a taste of the deeper emotions rushing beneath.   
  
Whirl’s gaze tracked between them. He couldn’t sense any dishonesty in their fields. Their interest seemed, to appearances, genuine.   
  
“It’s not a trick?” he asked, and hated how his voice quivered, when he’d rathered it come out better a threat.   
  
Too late now.   
  
“Not a trick,” Tailgate said. “I’d never be that cruel.”   
  
Whirl sighed. His shoulders sank down. “Fine,” he said, and held up a claw before Tailgate’s delighted sound could get into a higher decibel. “We’ll try. I’m not promising anything because I think it’s doomed to fail. But sure. Let’s try.”   
  
Tailgate all but jittered in place, so Whirl sighed and opened his arms, and let Tailgate run into them, giving him a big embrace. Cyclonus remained in reach, but Whirl suspected his displays of affection would be far more muted, if he had any to offer in the first place.   
  
“Then you believe we are sincere?” Cyclonus asked.   
  
Whirl rolled his shoulders and rested a claw on Tailgate’s back. “I believe you think you know what you’re asking for.” He met Cyclonus’ gaze straightforward. “Just don’t blame me when it falls apart. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”   
  
“It won’t,” Tailgate said, clutching him harder, his field wrapped so tightly around Whirl’s, he felt immobilized. “That’s not going to happen.”   
  
Cyclonus, a little older, a little wider, merely nodded in agreement. “Understood. For now, might we return to our drinks and our table? I had Swerve hold it for us.”   
  
“Fine,” Whirl replied, and before he could ask, Tailgate shimmied out of the embrace and wrapped his fingers around one of Whirl’s wrists instead.   
  
“This okay?” he asked. “Or would you rather..?” He trailed off, fingers trailing away, and Whirl made a fool of himself by surging forward, reaching for Tailgate.   
  
“That’s fine,” he said, more gruff than he should have. “I ain’t gonna die of embarrassment over a little hand-holding.” He looked askance at the purple corner of their trio, tentatively aiming for humor. “Cyclonus might though.”   
  
Tailgate giggled.   
  
Cyclonus rolled his optics. “I do not need a show of ownership to prove my claim.” He moved to the door, and opened it. “Thought if either of you wish for me to do so, I will oblige.”   
  
“Like putty in our hands,” Tailgate mock-whispered up at Whirl. He beamed and tugged Whirl forward. “Come on.”   
  
Whirl let Tailgate pull him wherever they wanted to go. His thoughts were in a daze, and his actions matched it. He wondered if he’d sidestepped into one of those alternate universes Brainstorm babbled about sometimes. Either that, or he was trapped in a purge and no one cared enough to wake him up.   
  
Maybe he didn’t want to, if this was the result.   
  
They went back to Swerve’s, Cyclonus on one side, Tailgate’s fingers wrapped around Whirl’s wrist on the other. Tailgate babbled about nothing important – more videos he’d watched with Rewind apparently – and Cyclonus made appropriate sounds of interest.   
  
Whirl stared at both of them, resisting the urge to blurt “why?” every few steps. He was tense, waiting for Rewind to pop out from around the corner to shout “gotcha” and record Whirl’s reaction for the sake of all those in on the joke.   
  
It didn’t happen. Not even when they returned to Swerve’s, to their abandoned table, Whirl sitting down first with Cyclonus sitting next to him this time, and Tailgate across. Their drinks waited. The stares of those still present swiveled their directly briefly before wandering away, to their own business.   
  
Swerve himself came by, with a grin so broad you could have flown a Seeker through his denta. “Congratulations,” he said as he tipped a tray of treats onto the table. “I don’t know what this is going to do to the betting tables. I think this is what they call an upset.”   
  
“It’s called ‘Collecting my Winnings’,” Cyclonus said as he accepted one of the treats, spinning it around in his clawed fingers. “If you’ll recall.”   
  
Swerve cycled his visor. He tilted his head to the left, to the right, and then he startled. “Oh, Primus. I’d forgotten about that.”   
  
“I am sure Skids has not, but just in case, I will remind you.” Cyclonus sniffed the treat before taking a delicate bite of it. “I will seek him out later. Those creds will be useful in treating my partners to something suitably romantic.”   
  
Swerve’s mouth opened and closed, flapping like he’d run out of words, and Whirl didn’t know which was more wild. That Swerve had been rendered speechless, or that Cyclonus had outright claimed Whirl has one of his.   
  
Relief flooded Whirl so fast it almost made him dizzy. It was such a small thing, this moment, but it seemed to solidify a truth inside his spark. This was real. This was serious. Cyclonus actually meant to date him, and Tailgate meant it, too. And they’d meant it enough that Swerve, only the biggest gossip on the entire ship short of Brainstorm, knew it as well.   
  
A hand rested on Whirl’s knee beneath the table, chaste and warm. A subtle claim, the sort Cyclonus was more comfortable with.   
  
“Date money,” Tailgate sang with a cheerful slurp of his engex. He had a fistful of the treats in his other hand. “I expect to be spoiled, Cyclonus.”   
  
“Of course, little one,” Cyclonus responded, and he patted Whirl’s thigh with quiet clicks of metal and metal. “And we will find something to spoil you with as well.”   
  
Swerve gibbered something about needing to take care of customers, and he vanished, leaving them alone.   
  
Tailgate laughed and looked at Whirl with heat in his visor. “I’m so glad I get to spoil you, too,” he said, and Whirl felt a foot touch his beneath the table. Tailgate’s visor turned as mischievous as it was playful.   
  
Cyclonus’ hand slid up and down Whirl’s thigh, briefly squeezing his knee before stroking his plating. He left trails of charge in his wake.   
  
Primus.   
  
Whirl cupped his engex like it was going to save his spark.   
  
Maybe this could work after all.   
  


*

  
  
  


**Epilogue – Stage Four**

  
  
Days passed.   
  
Weeks.   
  
Months.   
  
Whirl onlined every morning, wanting for the other ball to drop. He crashed at the end of his shift, or when the need for recharge struck him, wondering if he’d online with it all being a dream.   
  
But, no.   
  
This was his new reality now.   
  
Tailgate and Cyclonus, separately, and together, coaxing his presence, speaking to him, spending time with him, asking him questions. He was never one without the other, and for now, they never went anywhere without him.   
  
“There will be a point you’re sure of how much you mean to us,” Cyclonus had said with a squeeze of Whirl’s wrist and a brush of his lips over the inside of it. “But until then, we won’t give you cause to worry.”   
  
“Besides, we’ve had more time to get to know each other. It’s your turn!” Tailgate had agreed later, as he’d set about to exploring every inch of Whirl’s frame with short, nimble fingers and an intent look on his face.   
  
Whirl never would have guessed Tailgate was the hungrier of the two.   
  
Those months passed with Whirl waiting for the final line of the joke. For either Cyclonus or Tailgate or both of them to pull away, to realize it wasn’t him they wanted, but the help he provided. Or at least, they only wanted friendship. He waited for such an announcement.   
  
It never came.   
  
They invited him everywhere. They insisted he take part as much as possible. He often ended up with Tailgate attached to him in public, since he was more amenable to public affection. But that didn’t mean he never caught Cyclonus’ hand briefly squeezing his claw or resting on his shoulder or laying over his knee.   
  
Whirl tried. And he kept trying, because it was worth trying.   
  
Because most nights, they wouldn’t let him go back to his lonely berthroom. Most nights, they’d tug him into the double-berth they’d made by pushing theirs together. It was still a shade too small, but they made it work.   
  
Whirl always ended up on the bottom because he was the biggest. Cyclonus curled up to his side, always between them and the open area of the room, as if determined to protect them. Tailgate crawled on last, sprawling on top of both of them somehow like a minibot blanket that took up far more space than should have been logistically possible.   
  
Whirl learned to recharge wrapped in their fields, the happy pulses of Tailgate’s softer warmth and the sonorous echoes of Cyclonus’ fierce shelter. Tailgate always fell into recharge first, and times like those were when Whirl and Cyclonus talked in hushed tones, Whirl stroking a bared white thigh, Cyclonus patting Tailgate’s back.   
  
Sometimes, Cyclonus drifted off first. Sometimes, Whirl.   
  
Recharge wasn’t as hard to find as it used to be. Whirl didn’t have to stare up at the ceiling in a dark, quiet, cold habsuite. He had warmth. He had the dim glow of their biolights. And he had the noises of their frames. The ticks and clicks and vents in measurable rhythms, like the gears of a clock, just a shade out of sync.   
  
He could be happy like this, Whirl realized.   
  
It felt like it was within reach. Attainable. That thing called happiness.   
  
All he had to do was accept it.   
  
Falling in love was never part of the plan.   
  
But well.   
  
He’d just call this Plan B.   
  
You couldn’t always be right the first time.   
  


***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: I had such a good time with this fic. I love CyWhirlGate and I'm so excited I was sponsored to write it. As always, feedback is welcome, appreciated, and encouraged!


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